where are you going, where have you been?

“Mornings meant ‘thick o’ fog’ that caught on rooftops and dripped, blurring weathered gray shingles while barely muting the deep pink of rosa rugosa or the hydrangea’s blue. Wood smoke filled the air on rainy days, pine sap on sunny ones, and wafting through it all was the briny smell of the sea.”

we took the backroads
exploring off the beaten track
under changeable skies
by the sea
ending with the best clam chowdah
and a few beers at the local pub
we walked back to our hotel
on the mostly empty streets
in the dark

after a long week of gray and gloom
Saturday morning, we awoke to bright sunshine and clear blue skies
so we hopped in the car and headed out to wander the trails at Halibut Point

as we got closer to Rockport, the sky turned dark and the snow started coming down
little did we know that Cape Ann would be the ONLY spot in Massachusetts to be in a snowstorm that day.

Despite the fact that we were unprepared
no boots, hats or warm gloves,
it was pretty magical.

We found refuge in a coffee shop on Bearskin Neck
where we dried off and warmed up over cappuccino,
the caffeine fix was just enough to get us back out the door to join the busy Christmas shoppers on the streets.

*************

“Life is so full of unpredictable beauty and strange surprises. Sometimes that beauty is too much for me to handle. Do you know that feeling? When something is just too beautiful? When someone says something or writes something or plays something that moves you to the point of tears, maybe even changes you.”
~ Mark Oliver Everett